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Life Cafe Salad Recipe

If you've been missing the epic salad that Life Cafe was famous for, you're not alone. Here's a great recipe to get the Life Salad back

Hong Kong's Life Cafe was an institution and can probably be attributed a fair portion of the kudos available for bringing the undeniable trend of 'clean living' to Hong Kong that now grips the city. For a long time it was the only vegetarian restaurant where you could get a good salad.

I was a regular and I always ordered the same thing: Life Salad, dressing on the side. And now for a confession: I’ve been dreaming of the Life Salad. I miss it daily at lunchtime. That is…until now. I decided to find a way to get the Life Salad back and get it to you—fast.

My friend Carlos was the head chef at Life a decade ago and I finally found some notes from Carlos with the famed ingredients of the Life Salad dressing. I’ve taken a bit of a creative twist and made it my own. The dressing is creamier, lighter and more blended. The rest of the salad will be very familiar to those of you who have tried it, and for those who haven’t, get ready for a new addiction. Feel free to play with any of your favorite hummus versions. Try my sprouted version or my sun-dried tomato hummus (recipe to come in a couple of weeks on my website). And for the crackers: any raw ones will do.

Now go get a life. A Life Salad, that is.

Author: Nealy Fischer

Ingredients

Sprouted hummus

1 cup chickpeas, dried

¼ cup tahini

¼ cup water

2 tbsp lemon juice

2 cloves garlic

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp coriander powder

Salt and pepper to taste

Dressing

2-3 cups assorted green herbs (basil, parsley, oregano, thyme)

3 tbsp lemon juice

1 clove garlic

1 tbsp tahini

2 tbsp nutritional yeast

1 teaspoon mustard

¼ cup-1/3 cup olive oil

Water, if needed

Salt and pepper, to taste

Salad

Mixed Greens

Shredded carrots

Shredded beetroot

Alfalfa sprouts

Nuts and seeds

Nutritional yeast, to sprinkle

Raw Crackers

Sprouted hummus

Method

To sprout chickpeas: soak in water overnight or up to 24 hours. Drain and rinse in the morning and spread on a cookie sheet or pyrex dish. Rinse every few hours. Sprouting time depends on humidity. When ready it will be pretty obvious and you will see sprouts emerge! Once done, store in airtight container in the fridge.

When you're all sprouted, blend hummus ingredients in a high speed blender and set aside. I suggest making this one day ahead.

To make the dressing, blend all the dressing ingredients in a vitamix or a blender, adding water to thin to desired consistency.

To assemble, place a mound of greens in individual bowls or a family style platter. Drizzle some of the dressing on the greens. Add the carrots, beetroot, and alfalfa sprouts on top. Sprinkle with nuts, seeds, nutritional yeast and drizzle more dressing on top. Scoop two spoonfuls of hummus onto the salad (I like to use an ice cream scoop) and garnish with some crackers (I make my own raw crackers and will share that recipe soon). Keeps in fridge for 2 days.